


Promises

by space_squirrel



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 17:29:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5384231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/space_squirrel/pseuds/space_squirrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, there was no romance in her death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises

**Author's Note:**

> I recently confessed to my boyfriend that I have a Mass Effect fanfiction problem (after explaining what exactly fanfic is, ha!). Anyway, he suggested I should write my own. Generally I'm too lazy, but this particular idea - or series of unrelated sentences, rather - hit and I couldn't NOT string them together. This is the result.
> 
> This is my first fanfic since, oh, 1998 in my obsessive X-Files days. Yikes. Now I feel old.

In the end, there was no romance in her death.

They find her, days after the end of the reaper war, buried in the rubble; burned, bruised, bloodied and broken. The larger-than-life Saviour of the Galaxy, looking so small and fragile in this moment. This was not how he wanted to find her. Not how he wanted to remember her.

The stark contrast of her pale, ashen skin against the blood stained wreckage of the Citadel will haunt him forever.

Her cold, blue eyes stare lifelessly at the stars she had so loved, her right hand splayed out to the side as if, in her final moments, she had been reaching for something.

Gently, he uncurls the fist of her left hand, clutched tightly to her chest, and a sob wracks through his body as he realizes what it is she held so tightly.

Two once-silver dog tags, now blacked from flame and nearly unrecognizable. To the casual observer, this was nothing too far from ordinary: two tags are military standard, but any closer inspection would reveal each was engraved with a different service number and name. His and hers, together, traded silently in a moment of quiet intimacy weeks earlier.

She had not been reaching for something, he realizes, but someone.

Reaching for him.

With a howl, he falls to the ground and slams his fist into the concrete, a sickening crunch echoing through the stillness, blood pooling.

This wasn't fair.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this, not for her.

Not for them.

If only he had followed her through the beam, like he had silently promised. Like he had always intended to do.

 

_“I won’t ever leave you, Shepard,” he breathed, his lips hot against her skin. “Not again. Not now, not ever.”_

_She pulled back, her blue eyes searching his._

_“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Kaidan,” she said softly, gaze flicking downward._

_He paused, frowning, reaching towards her once more._

_“Shepard, I--”_

_His response is cut off as she furiously presses her mouth to his. When they break for air, she speaks again, running her hands down his face._

_“Don’t. Just... be with me here. Now. That’s the only promise I want from you.”_

_He nods, slowly, moving his thumb across her cheek as he cups her face and brushes his lips against hers._

_No more words were spoken that night._

 

It was as if she had known, that night, how it would all end. She was Commander Sophie Shepard, afterall. Daughter of Rear Admiral Hannah Shepard. N7. The Butcher of Torfan. Saviour of the Citadel. Resurrected from the dead.

Failing was not in her nature, and he knew - they all knew - that she would do anything, everything possible to see this through until the end.

He just never imagined it would end like this.

Maybe she had known, he realizes, on some level, that she would not be coming back.

Not this time.

 

_His first thought as his head slammed into the ground, ashes and shrapnel pelting his body, was of her._

_Was she safe?_

_He heard her, before he saw her, screaming for an evac._

_His heart sunk as he registered the fear in her voice. One of them, one of their squad, one of their friends, their_ family _, was injured._

_The next thing he remembers was her strong arms wrapping around him, lifting him up and dragging him towards the Normandy._

_That was when it dawned on him. He was the one she had called the evac for._

_He was the one she was sending away._

_“Shepard...” he croaked, shaking his head slightly and willing his eyes to focus on her face as she passed him to Garrus and Tali._

_“Kaidan, please,” she breathed, cupping his cheek. “You’ve got to get out of here.”_

_“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” he replied, struggling against Garrus in an effort to stand on his own._

_“Don’t argue with me Kaidan,” she shot back. Voice steady, commanding; blue eyes silently pleading._

_“Don’t leave me behind,” he begged, voice cracking. “Not this time. Please, not this time.”_

_She smiled, softly, and her eyes welled with tears._

_“I need to know you’re getting out of this alive, Kaidan.”_

_“Shepard, I...”_

_She grabbed his hand and squeezed, cutting him off._

_“No matter what happens, Kaidan, know that I love you. Always.”_

_She gently brushed her lips against his, a ghost of a kiss, and released his hand as she turned to go._

_“I love you too, Sophie,” he breathed, choking back a sob. “So much. Please, be careful.”_

_She glanced back, giving him a sad smile, before her Commander Shepard mask slipped back into place and she turned, darting away from him and towards the beam._

_He blinked back his tears, and when he looks again she’s gone.  
_

 

He is grateful, in this moment, that he had a chance to tell her he loved her one last time.

With a shaky, deep breath he leans forward, gently closing her eyes, and presses one last kiss to her temple.

“I love you,” he whispers, wondering if she can hear him, wherever she is. “And I know you’re waiting for me, Shepard. It might take me awhile, but I _will_ show up.”

His voice catches as he speaks, making his final vow to the woman he loved, would always love.

“I promise.”

 

**Epilogue**

It’s been five years since the end of the reaper war.

Five long years since he lost her.

He’s married, since then, to a sweet though naive girl named Clara, a farmer’s daughter who feels right at home on his family’s orchard; one of the few places miraculously spared from the devastation the rest of the world faced.

Shepard would have hated life on the orchard, he’s sure. Born and raised among the stars, she was always on edge when she was in one place for too long, hated to be away from the rush and thrill of life in the sky, where adrenaline hummed through her body, pumping through her veins like blood.

He smiles sadly, picturing the life he always thought he’d have. There was no white picket fence in that long lost life, no orchard or roots. There was an apartment, somewhere in the sky - a place to rest in between missions. But home was on their ship, would always be on their ship. And there was family: the crew of the Normandy, some stationed with them, others just a vid call away. There were kids, two of them, a boy and girl with her sun-kissed skin and blue eyes, his curly dark hair; growing up as she had, star children in the sky.

That life that was nothing like the one he lived now: one daughter, twin boys on the way and plans for a few more. Life on the orchard was simple, easy, even; shared with a sweet wife with soft hands, her body creamy, smooth and unscarred. A wife who was happy staying home to raise their kids, who found joy in the mundane moments of normalcy. She loves to cook for him, something Shepard had always hated.

Clara's voice startles him from his thoughts, her hand brushing across his shoulder as she joins him.

“Are you almost ready?” She asks, trailing her hand down his arm and threading her fingers through his.

He raises her hand to his lips, placing a faint kiss across her knuckles.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” he answers, smiling down at her.

She kisses his cheek and moves away, heading towards her seat in the front row.

He barely registers the polite applause from the audience as Admiral Hackett’s assistant ushers him out to the podium.

It’s Victory Day on Earth, and everyone is celebrating.

Well, almost everyone.

Clara, though she loves him deeply, will never understand the hole inside his heart, the one that will never be filled. She doesn’t understand why, after all these years, he still mourns his losses instead of celebrating Earth’s successes on this day. She knows a part of him will never be hers, will always belong to Shepard; but he keeps the depth of his sorrow tightly locked away from her, too painful, too personal to share, even with her.

But the six people seated in front of him - his family by bond, not by blood - _their_ family, they understand.

Because they aren't celebrating today, either.

He takes a deep breath, looking past his wife, focusing instead on this adopted family, with all their quirks and weaknesses, all their sadness and pain.

He closes his eyes, offering a quick thought to those no longer with them: Javik, missing since the start of the final battle. Edi, who suddenly stopped functioning, along with the rest of their technology and the geth, the moment the crucible fired. Wrex and Ashley, lost so long ago, but never forgotten. Adams, who tragically died in an effort to keep the engines online when the Normandy crashed. And Samara, Traynor and Cortez, who died a hero's death during the those final hours.

Kaidan opens his eyes and meets Tali’s gaze. She clasps a hand to her heart, and he imagines her giving him a gentle, sad smile. Garrus nods, silently offering encouragement.

He clears his throat, and blinking moisture away, begins to speak.

“I’m here today, on Victory Day, to tell you about Commander Sophie Shepard, Saviour of the Galaxy. She gave her life to save us all, and will live forever in history as a hero. But to me, she was just Sophie. My Sophie. And I am both weakened and strengthened, constantly, by her presence and forever absence in my life...”

**Author's Note:**

> The final line Kaidan says was the inspiration behind this story. It was written by a writer I follow on Facebook by the name of Janne Robinson today. It jumped out at me, and this was word vomitted out.
> 
> Sophie Shepard was my first (and therefore canon) Shep, and in my head she actually lives, because I can’t stand the thought of her dying. But this little guy was running around my brain and begging to be let out, so uh, here it is.


End file.
